


Bellicoso

by frostandcrow



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Captain Khan does…whatever it is he does, Case Fic, Gen, HCPD as a veritable den of vipers, Hurt/Comfort, Juno does a good deed, Rita does her Thing™, and is objectively The Best, and maybe doesn't get enough credit, and suffers canon-typical consequences from doing so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 03:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18791851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostandcrow/pseuds/frostandcrow
Summary: Juno breaks into the HCPD precinct, which has predictable outcomes.





	Bellicoso

**Author's Note:**

> I love how it’s so heavily implied that the entirety of the HCPD hates Juno’s guts in canon. Such ripe territory to explore…
> 
> Also, this features Rita because duh.
> 
> This takes place between the end of Season 1 and the beginning of Season 2.
> 
> See “End Notes” for Trigger Warnings.

Rita wasn’t too sure of the details of her boss’s current case, but that wasn’t unusual. She supposed she had started a precedent when, in the early years of their working relationship, it had become quickly apparent that her attention wandered within a minute or two of Juno’s explanations. It wasn’t like she needed long explanations anyway. Her innate ability to just _know_ what her boss needed was unparalleled and rarely failed. Given that Juno’s patience with having to explain pretty much _anything_ in detail was essentially nonexistent, this arrangement worked well for them. 

 

And while Rita knew that Juno would never take her skills for granted, she did sometimes wish he would express a little more gratitude or at least acknowledge how gargantuan the tasks she accomplished for him were at times.

 

Most of the time, his requests were a source of entertainment for her, like she imagined some people found in Rubix Cubes or Venusian Snap Traps, and she relished the challenges. 

 

Then, there were requests like his current one.

 

It wasn’t him calling her at one o’clock in the morning that was all that unusual. She always gave him whichever odd piece of information he needed at such a ridiculous hour, most of the time with minimal grumbing, even. But, when he’d called her, saying, “Rita, I’m going to need you to come into the office and hack into the HCPD station cameras because there’s something there I need,” that was unusual. And concerning. Her boss didn’t have the most well-developed self-preservation instinct, but usually he made it a point to avoid stepping foot into the proverbial snakes’ den because there was _reckless_ and then there was _actively seeking an admission to the Hyperion General ICU_.

 

She’d made it to the office just as Juno was shrugging on his coat. He looked like he had about five different trains of thought all running at the same time, but before he’d left, he mentioned something about a client, a client’s spouse, blackmail, selling drugs for the HCPD, some sort of virtual document being held as ransom, and, lastly, “I’m gonna be at the station in about twenty minutes, so make sure you’re in by then.”

 

So she’d huffed for a bit before deciding to be generous and give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his brusque parting words were actually a vote of confidence towards her abilities. She gained access to the camera feed system in just under five minutes. 

 

Just as she was wondering which of her streams might be playing at this time of the morning, she saw a familiar figure come into one of the external camera’s fields. She watched as the figure dialed his comms. A second later, hers rang.

 

“Mista’ Steel?”

 

“Rita, can you see me?” 

 

“Loud and clear, boss! Or, uh, large and in the flesh?”

 

“Good. I need you to loop the feed or something so anyone else watching the cameras won’t know I’m here.” 

 

“Oh, is that all?” she asked, making sure the sarcasm was obvious enough that her boss would pick up on it. “Boss, do you know how hard it is to loop feed to multiple cameras in real time while keeping an eye on live feed?”

 

“Hard enough that you won’t be able to watch your streams but easy enough that you’ll still be able to complain while doing it?”

 

“ _And_ I don’t think I’ll be able to eat my snacks, so you better make it quick ‘cause I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep up with ya if I don’t keep my energy level good.”

 

“Got it. I don’t plan on making this a social visit. You ready? I’m going in now.” And, without waiting for Rita to acknowledge, he disappeared from that camera’s feed and reappeared on the adjacent one. 

 

He approached a side door to the precinct—one of the employee entrances—and looked up at the camera. Rita quickly looped the feed for that camera and several others up ahead in preparation for her boss to travel those halls. She found the code to unlock the door and watched as her boss quickly entered the building. 

 

He made his way down the long corridor. “Rita,” he said in a low whisper, “Let me know if you see anyone up ahead.”

  
“Sure thing, boss,” she reflexively whispered back in kind. She looked at another feed showing a guard at a desk with multiple monitors whose displays seemed to mirror Rita’s. However, his camera feed display showed an empty hall where Juno currently was. Not that it really mattered: the guard was currently absorbed in a game on his comms and hadn’t looked up at his monitors once since Rita had started keeping tabs on him.

 

Juno’s journey to the bullpen was uneventful. Rita disabled the automatic lighting so that the large, cluttered room remained dark when he entered it. She watched as he slowly walked between desks, shining his flashlight over their surfaces, clearly looking for one in particular. Then, he started to search one of the desks near the far wall of her camera feed. After jimmying open and searching through few drawers, he stilled and then grabbed a small object.

 

“Rita?” he whispered.

 

“Yeah, boss?”

 

“I need you to help me open this LocDoc.” 

 

“I dunno boss, that’s gonna be hard for me to do from here.”

 

“I didn’t ask if it was going to be easy, Rita,” he growled, quietly, “Can you do it or not?”

 

Rita huffed, irritatedly. “‘Course I can, boss. You’re gonna need to plug it into the desktop computer, though.” She looked over at the surveillance feeds. There didn’t seem to be anyone likely to disrupt them anytime soon. 

 

“Okay…where do I do that?”

 

Rita drew in a deep breath and tried to count to five before replying. She hadn’t forgotten her boss’s difficulties with technology, but she was continually surprised by the degree of his ineptitude.

 

“Okay, boss, here’s what you need to do…”

 

——————————————————————

 

It didn’t take as long as Rita feared to help Juno crack open the protected drive—a drive on which the files were “read-only” and could not be exported, downloaded, edited, or altered, which made it the preferred method for storing valuable documents—which she attributed more to her ability to coach Juno through the process than any simplicity in the act itself. 

 

Juno, apparently satisfied with what he saw, yanked the drive out of the port, ignored Rita’s protests that that was “ _not_ the ideal way to remove a LocDoc, Mista’ Steel,” slid the small drive into his boot, and then left the bullpen via the door he’d previously entered through. 

 

The halls stayed clear for almost thirty seconds before Rita caught sight of a cop walking down the hallway perpendicular to the one Juno was in, headed towards the intersection of those two corridors. “Boss, there’s someone up ahead!” she whispered frantically. She watched as he immediately ran forward a couple of feet to a nondescript door, opened it, and darted in.

 

There didn’t seem to be camera feed for that room, but Juno’s comms provided enough audio for her to have some awareness of the situation. 

 

For example, she learned right away that the room wasn’t empty. 

 

——————————————————————————————

 

Rita tried for the fifth time to reach Captain Khan on his comms while keeping an eye on the camera feed on her screen. She waited impatiently as it rang and rang and then didn’t bother leaving a fifth message on the answering machine. _What kinda person goes on vacation and_ turns off _their comms?_ she thought, anxiously. Before she could get too caught up in that train of thought, she realized that the two grainy figures she had been monitoring had left the view range of her current camera feed.

 

“Oh no! Come back, come back, come back,” she chanted as her fingers flew over the keyboard trying to find the next camera in the hall to continue to track her boss and his escort. “Aha!” she crowed triumphantly when she’d succeeded. She sat for a moment watching the camera feed as her boss was led, hands cuffed behind his back, further down an empty corridor by a single officer. From this new camera angle, she could tell that they were talking. The feed didn’t include audio, but she lamented that she didn’t need to hear the conversation to know that whatever Juno was saying, it was probably something calculated with uncanny precision to get his teeth kicked in.

 

Her mind spun frantically while she tried to come up with a plan to help spring him from custody. She glanced briefly at where her comms sat on her desk, wondering if she should try reaching Captain Khan again. 

 

Meanwhile, the duo had paused at the T-intersection at the end of the corridor. Rita knew from past employment at the HCPD that taking a left would lead to the holding cells. She wasn’t quite sure what lay off to the right.

 

Interestingly, that was the direction the cop tugged Juno towards, appearing to speak briefly into his own comms device.

 

Then, the camera feed flickered off. 

 

“Oh _no_ you don’t!” cried Rita as she hacked deeper into the security protocols for the station’s surveillance system. She scrolled through, acting mostly on desperate instinct, until she saw the issue: someone was trying to cut the feeds in that sector of the building. “I gotta bad feeling about this,” she muttered as she typed even faster, writing code that would transfer control to her and bring back the live feed while leaving it disabled on the HCPD side of things. As an afterthought, she started to download the footage to her hard drive as well.

 

The feed returned back to her monitor just in time for her to see that Juno and his escort had made it to the door at the end of the hall. She rapidly switched feeds to tap into the camera on the other side of the door and discovered that they were entering a stairwell. 

 

Juno stopped mid-stride as if he had a sudden realization. The cop tugged him forward, but Juno dug his heels in and didn’t budge. 

 

Rita’s wasn’t sure what was going on, but her sense of foreboding intensified. Finding herself unable to tolerate the unknown, she quickly pulled up the schematics to the station. “Huh, that’s weird,” she said, puzzled. It appeared that the stairs led down to the room housing the computer servers. “I know Mista’ Steel don’t like computers, but I didn’t know he felt that strongly about ‘em.”

 

She glanced back over at the camera feed in time to see the end of a baton being crammed into her boss’s gut. He fell to his knees and curled forward, his arms handcuffed behind him. The cop watched him for a few seconds before he ran out of patience, grabbed Juno by the arm, and tugged him up. 

 

Juno took the opportunity—and the extra momentum afforded him by the cop’s efforts—to launch himself upwards, the back of his head connecting with the officer’s chin. The officer staggered backwards, but didn’t fall. He grabbed Juno’s arm as the latter tried to dart back towards the door they had just gone through and swung him around so that Juno’s back was to the flight of stairs. 

 

The image was slightly grainy, but Rita could still make out the trickle of blood that trailed from the officer’s bottom lip as it twisted into a cruel smirk. He placed both hands on Juno’s shoulders and started crowding him towards the top stair, saying something that was, on the balance of probability, likely taunting. 

 

From this angle, she could only see Juno from behind, but she caught a glimpse of his profile as he checked behind himself. The cop stopped once Juno’s heels were right at the edge. They stood there for a moment, the cop’s mouth still moving and hands still gripping Juno’s shoulders. 

 

Then, without warning, the cop shoved Juno backwards. 

 

She was sure Juno would have flailed had his arms been free. As it was, she saw his chest heave as he realized that the wasn’t actually falling, that the cop’s grip had never left his arm. 

 

The cop was openly laughing now. Juno remained as still as possible, as if his balance was precarious enough that the slightest movement would have him tumbling for real. 

 

Then, with a push that was deceptively light, he was. 

 

Rita’s heart stopped and she let out a shriek of shock. Due to the angle of the camera, she lost sight of him after the first several steps. A few quick key strokes patched in the feed from the camera at the bottom of the flight of stairs, but by that point, Juno’s tumble was complete and he lay still.

 

She was pretty sure she didn’t start breathing again until she saw that he was, though he remained otherwise still. At first, she couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or not, but as the figure of the cop came into view—sauntering unhurriedly down the steps the more conventional way—Juno started to move in what looked like an effort to right himself without the use of his arms. 

 

The man watched as Juno gave up in his attempts to sit upright and transitioned that effort into pushing himself away from his tormentor. This only caused the cop to laugh as he sadistically continued to walk forward at the same pace that Juno was scrambling backwards until the Juno’s back hit the wall and he was trapped.

 

The cop was clearly still laughing as he reached down and pulled Juno upright. Juno stumbled, unsteady on his feet, so the cop helped to steady him by shoving him backwards and pinning him to the wall. He said something else, Juno nodded reluctantly, and then the two slowly made their way back up the stairs, the cop stabilizing Juno with a firm grip on his shoulder.

 

Rita stared at the screen, aghast, as she watched the pair make their way onto the landing, out the door, and back to the corridor that led to the holding cells. Her mind was whirling, but…there was nothing she could think to do. She knew she could figure out how to control the station’s power, the phones, the surveillance, but she couldn’t control the _people_ there, the majority of whom clearly desired active harm towards her boss. 

 

Her mind whirled with half-formed ideas and plans, each quickly discarded as futile. Maybe she should just…leave him in the holding cell until morning? Surely the night shift had had their fun and would leave him alone for the rest of their shift? She shook her head vigorously. No, that was unacceptable. Her boss had trusted her to have his back in enemy territory. She had to come up with _something._ Maybe she could— 

 

Her frantic thinking was interrupted by an incoming call on her comms. 

 

“HellothisisRITAbutit’sabadtimesopleasecallback—“

 

A cough followed by a gruff voice interrupted her. “Rita? Steel’s secretary?” 

 

“Oh! Mister Captain Khan?!?”

 

“Yeah, who else do you expect to call you after calling them _five times_ in the span of two minutes. This had better be good. I’m on vacation! First vacation in years! I’m finally getting the feeling that my kids actually realize I’m their father and not just some random guy who joins them at the dinner table most nights.”

 

“I’m glad to hear that, sir, and I’m _really_ sorry to bug you on your vacation ’n all, but you _have_ to help me!”

 

“Can it wait? I’ll be back on Monday.”

 

Rita’s voice grew more frantic. “I don’t think it can, sir. I don’t think Mista’ Steel will last that long.”

 

“Ooooh, no. No, no, no. What ever trouble your boss has dug himself into this time, I want no part of it.”

 

“But Captain Khan, he’s been arrested by _your_ officers and they’ve already shoved him down a flight of stairs and I’m not sure what else they’re gonna do to him but I’m really worried and I _really_ don’t wanna have to go to the Channel 8 News people with footage of an officer shoving a civilian down a flight of stairs because that’ll probably cause more problems than it’ll solve, both for you _and_ for us but it’s either that or I hack into the station’s power and hope Mista’ Steel can fend for himself in the chaos but he’s still handcuffed and probably hurt bad but if that’s our only shot than I’ll take it and I don’t care if it’s illegal because at this point I’d do much better in custody at the station than he would—“

 

“Wait just a moment,” Khan cut in. “I’m going to need you to back up just a bit and tell me just _what the heck_ is going on?”

 

“I’m _tryin’_ ” Rita protested, chest tightening with helplessness. She kept her eye on the slow progress the cop was making in escorting her limping boss through to the holding cells. 

 

“Well, in that case I’m going to have to ask you to try harder, then.” She heard him take a huge breath and then, more calmly, said, “Miss Rita, please. Start from the beginning and tell me what in the ever-loving world is going on in my precinct.” 

 

—————————————————————————————

 

It felt like an eternity before Rita was able to adequately explain the events leading up to Juno’s arrest to Khan’s standards. The process was delayed somewhat by having to calm him down after Khan had reached the (correct) conclusion that Juno had broken into the precinct in the first place, but eventually, she got Khan to agree that, given Rita had footage of overt police brutality saved to her hard drive, it was probably in everyone’s best interest to sweep the matter under to rug.

 

Rita stayed glued to her monitor until she was able to see a young cop arrive at HCPD, march towards the holding cells, hold a brief shouting match with the on-duty cop, and then post themself in front of Juno’s cell. She presumed this was the Lieutenant Loo that Khan had told her about, one of the few cops that Khan had absolute trust in. 

 

Rita didn’t know Captain Khan very well, and there had been that time that he’d almost wrecked the case her boss had been working with Missus Valles, but she had never seen Khan do anything crooked or corrupt, which made him one of the most honest cops Rita could think of. And, if he trusted this Lieutenant Loo, than she didn’t have much choice but to trust them as well. 

 

It was that faith that allowed her to leave her monitors, and therefore her ability to keep her eye on her boss, in order to rescue him from the clutches of the HCPD.

 

——————————————————————

 

She knew that her reputation at the HCPD was nearly nonexistent—no one remembers a secretary who quit over ten years ago, even one as unique as Rita. That didn’t keep her from nearly vibrating out of her skin as she was escorted (thankfully, by a cop she didn’t recognize from the feed earlier) towards the holding cells. Within the confines of the HCPD, she figured having an association with the infamous Juno Steel was nearly as bad as being the lady himself. 

 

However, the trip to the holding cells was uneventful. The person sat protectively in front of Juno’s cell, whose badge did indeed say “Lt Loo,” eyed her uncertainly and then got up to unlock the cell when Rita introduced herself. 

 

“He’s all yours,” they said. “I’ll make sure no one does anything as you guys leave.” Then, hesitating, they added, “Do you think I should call an ambulance, or…”

 

Rita looked inside the cell. Juno was sat on the bench, cradling his left arm. His squinted as the bright light from outside spilled into the dim cell. 

 

“Rita?” he asked, uncertainly.

 

“Yeah, boss, it’s me.” She walked further into the cell. “I’m gettin’ ya out of here. Can you walk?”

 

“If it means leaving, then yeah.” He groaned as he stood and then started to immediately list to the side. Rita quickly rushed forward to steady him. “Sorry,” he muttered. If nothing else, the unprompted apology worried Rita more than his apparent injuries.

 

“’S’okay boss,” she said gently. “Let’s sit you back dow—“

 

“No,” he said quickly, moving to take more of his own weight. “No, I’m fine. Let’s just…get out of here, okay?”

 

“Are you sure? We can get an ambulance here pretty darn quick.” She knew what his response would be as soon as she offered the suggestion, but thought it was worth trying anyway.

 

“No ambulance,” he said, adamantly, proving her hypothesis correct. He started to limp slowly towards the cell door. Rita rolled her eyes and caught up with him. Juno made no comment as she gently wrapped an arm around his waist to help support some of his weight. 

 

It took a while, but they eventually made it out of the building and into the pre-dawn air. She felt Juno relax slightly as the door shut behind them and allowed Rita to guide him towards the car. 

 

————————————————————————————

 

Juno’s protests were half-hearted as Rita drove him to Hyperion City General and he accepted her help with walking without much fuss. They sat in the overcrowded ER waiting room for about an hour, Juno slumped miserably in the hard plastic chair, holding his left arm protectively and shifting every minute or so, trying to find a comfortable position. Rita, filling out the paperwork on his behalf, kept up a running stream of chatter, though, if she were being honest, she wasn’t certain if this was more for her comfort or his. 

 

Finally, they were assigned a room. A harried-looking ER physician eventually came in, took one look at Juno—clothes disheveled, bruise blossoming across his jaw, dark circles under his eye, lying half-reclined as still as possible on the gurney—and immediately sent him to x-ray. 

 

Several hours after this, Rita and Juno walked (and limped, respectively) out of the ER and into the now-sunlit morning. Juno slumped into the passenger seat as Rita eased the car out of the parking lot. “Take me home, Rita.”

 

“Sure thing, boss!” Analyzing that sentence, she realized that her tone wasn’t as chipper as she would have liked it, which, historically, was an indicator that she was tired. Normally, this happened when she marathoned a stream, but, since working with Juno, work-related causes of sleep deprivation had become more common—though not common enough that she felt the need to get their HR department involved. 

 

She didn’t think Juno really appreciated just how magnanimous she could be.

 

She did think, however, that he should have known better at this point than to issue ambiguous commands. Therefore, she felt absolutely no remorse when he opened his eye after he felt the car stop and said, “Goddammit, Rita, I said take me home.”

 

“You certainly did, boss. And that’s what I did! I don’t see why you’re all worked up.” She got out of the car before he could reply and walked around to open his door for him. 

 

She had barely opened the door before he clarified, “No, I meant _my_ home.”

 

“Then you should’a specified, boss. Now, come on. I’ll get the second bedroom all made up for you.”

 

Juno groaned slightly as he exited the car. “Knock yourself out. As soon as we get inside, I’m calling a cab.”

 

“I’m sure,” Rita responded, placatingly. As they walked towards her first-floor apartment, she continued, “I got some blackout blinds for the room. They work real good, so you should be able to get some great sleep! Oh! And I’m tryin’ this new fabric softener, and, boss, I gotta tell ya, it smells _exactly_ like sleep.”

 

Juno adjusted his arm in its sling as he followed her. She made sure to keep her pace slow. 

 

“What the hell is sleep supposed to smell like,” he grumbled. Rita figured it was mostly out of obligatory contrariness. 

 

“Well, lucky you! You’re about to see firsthand! Or, rather, _smell_ firsthand.”

 

“Rita,” Juno sighed, plaintively, as Rita unlocked her door. She shut the door after him as he followed her in, smirking at his back in victory. 

 

“Now, Mista’ Steel, I know they gave you a shot of pain meds while we were there, but I think you’re due for your next dose of those pills they gave ya.” She placed said bottle on the side table adjacent to her couch. “Now you sit down and I’ll get you a glass of water to take with ‘em before I go get the room ready for ya.”

 

She knew that her boss had issues with taking pain medications. More relevantly, she knew her boss’s history and knew where that hesitance came from. However, she knew that multiple broken bones were painful and that multiple broken bones were exactly what narcotic pain medications were for. She was therefore relieved when, while attacking the guest bed with the fitted sheet, she heard the rattle of a pill bottle being opened.

 

By the time she claimed victory in her efforts to make the room up for him and had re-entered the living room, she found that he’d mostly dozed off.

 

“Boss? Boss, ya need to wake up. Last time you passed out on my couch, you complained for days about the backache and that was _without_ broken bones.”

 

“I don’t have any broken bones,” Juno mumbled, clearly struggling to keep his eye open. 

 

Rita stared at him, incredulously. “You got broken ribs, boss.”

 

“Those don’t count.”

  
“What?” Rita asked, unused to being on this side of unconventional leaps of logic. 

 

“Can’t cast ‘em, can’t do anythin’ for them other than to just wait for ‘em to heal. So, they’re not like most other broken bones.” He had a slurred quality to his voice that would have worried Rita had the ER doctor not taken scans of his head before letting Juno go. The doc had diagnosed Juno with nothing more serious than a mild concussion and—contrary to old wives’ tales about sleep being risky in those with concussion—had prescribed plenty of rest and sleep for the next couple of days. 

 

“What about your arm, boss?”

 

“It was my shoulder, Rita, and it was only dislocated.”

 

“Okay, fine,” she compromised generously, “but that don’t change the fact that you sleepin’ on the couch is a bad idea. Let’s get you to bed.”

 

“Fine,” Juno conceded, clumsily trying to fight gravity, Rita’s soft couch cushions, and the effects of the pain medication with only one uninjured arm and leg. Eventually, between the two of them, they managed to get him upright, though it was a precarious thing.

 

After a struggle that Rita suspected she herself would need a day to recover from, they managed to get Juno into the guest bedroom and safely tucked in. He was asleep before his head even touched the pillow. 

 

Rita surveyed the room—glass of water and over-the-counter pain relievers on the night stand, floor clear of obstacles that one might trip over, and room a comfortable temperature—before flicking off the light switch and closing the door most of the way shut, leaving a sliver of light to illuminate the room. 

 

Task finally completed, she went into her bedroom and collapsed onto her bed, fully dressed. She fell asleep almost as quickly as Juno had. 

 

———————————————————————————

 

It was mid-afternoon that same day when Rita returned to the office to pick up some of the more pressing paperwork. It had been a struggle to drag herself out of her bed and into work, but she figured Juno, if left unattended, would probably do something stupid like find another case and she hadn’t thought to install the same locks on her door and windows that she had for his. 

 

Also, a couple of days spent working from home sounded quite appealing at the moment.

 

So, figuring that Juno would sleep on until at least early evening and therefore probably wouldn’t do anything that would prove he lacked a self-preservation instinct, she proceeded to the office alone. She planned to stay only as long as it would take to grab a couple of files, some billing invoices, and that locked-room cold case that Juno’d been working off-and-on for months—she figured that, since it was at this point a mystery that required more “thinking” than “doing,” it was probably the safest case with which to distract Juno when he reached the climbing-the-walls stage of his recovery.

 

She was shuffling through a stack of files on her desk when she heard the door open behind her. 

 

“Mista’ Steel! We talked about this! No comin’ to the office the same day you’ve been released from the hosp—oh, sorry. I thought you were the boss.”

 

A slight, dark-haired man stood in their office doorway, looking rumpled and tired. “Oh, I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

 

“Actually, yeah, it kinda is. We’re not actually open, you see—well, I mean, the door is open, obviously, but, metaphorically we’re closed. The boss ain’t here—literally and metaphorically— and in a coupl’a minutes, I ain’t gonna be here either.”

 

“Juno Steel isn’t here?” he asked, peering into the office as if Rita might be mistaken. “He told me to meet him here.”

 

“Yeah, well, you’ll have to take a raincheck ‘cause he’s indisposed at the moment,” said Rita, briskly. “Try back next week, I’m sure I’ll run out ‘a ways to force him to rest by then.”

 

“‘Indisposed’? He’s…we just spoke over the comms and he said he’d be here—“ he abruptly stopped and turned to look behind him. “Oh, Mr Steel, we were just talki—My goodness! What happened to you?”

 

“I fell down some stairs,” Juno said, plainly, limping slowly into the room. “C’mon, my office is back this way.”

 

“Mista’ Steel!” Rita cried, unintentionally hitting a pitch and volume that made both men flinch. “This is completely unacceptable! There is no way you’re workin’ in your condition. You’re goin’ home _right now_ even if I have to knock you out, tie you up with your shoe stings, and hire a coupl’a guys—or gals—to help me carry you back to my apartment, you hear me, mister?”

 

Juno sighed. “I’m not working, Rita. I just need to deliver the file I recovered to Gavin, here. Given who I took it from, it’s probably better that it leave my possession as soon as possible.” He turned back towards the dark-haired man—Gavin, Rita presumed. “C’mon, we can verify that everything they took from you is present and accounted for.” 

 

Rita watched the two men disappear into Juno’s office, the door shutting behind them. She didn’t know how long they’d be, but she resolved that she’d give her boss twenty minutes before she’d break down his door and drag him back home. 

 

At the eighteen minute mark, and just as Rita was thinking about digging out some flour, a metal pipe, and a piece of chewing gum—the same materials she’d used the last time she had to break her boss’s door down—the door opened.

 

“You have no idea how grateful we are, Mister Steel!” effused the man as he proceeded Juno out of the office. “You saved our family. We won’t ever forget your kindness.”

 

“If, by ’kindness’ you mean ‘motivation for a paycheck,’ then sure. Whatever.” Rita tried to contain her grin as she watched Juno ineptly attempt to deflect the man’s genuine appreciation. “Just…remember what I said, okay? These guys are the worst scum on Mars and I can’t guarantee that they won’t seek out retribution. Take your family and get off this planet. Start a life somewhere else. Hell, I hear life on Titan is all the rage these days.”

 

The man looked at Juno, eyes shining with gratitude. “Of course. This place…it holds a lot of bad associations for Bran. We could do with a fresh start.” A thought seemed to occur to Gavin. “What about you? By now they’ll realize that you’re the one responsible for getting the LocDoc back.”

 

“Yeah, well, lucky for me, it’s impossible for anyone in that precinct to want me more dead than they already do. I’ll be fine.”

 

“Well, okay…You’re the expert here. I trust you know best.”

 

Both men turned to look at Rita as she failed to suppress a bark of laughter.

“Don’t mind Rita, here,” said Juno, ushering Gavin to the door. “Tell Bran and Zoya that I said ‘hi’ and ‘no offense, but that I hope I never see any of you again because you took my advice.’”

 

“Of course. Will do, Mr Steel.” He clasped the hand of Juno’s uninjured arm firmly before turning and leaving the office. 

 

Juno watched him go.

 

“Awww, boss, I didn’t know this was an _actual_ case helpin’ an _actual_ guy!”

 

Juno limped over to one of the chairs in their small waiting area and gingerly lowered himself down into it, cradling his left arm in its sling protectively against his chest. “What, you think I tried to sneak into the HCPD for a good time?” he said through gritted teeth.

 

“Yours or theirs?” Rita couldn’t help but ask.

 

“Ha ha,” came the deadpan reply.

 

“But I’m serious, boss! You haven’t had a case since….well…” she gestured at her own eye.

 

“What’s your point, Rita?”

 

“My point is that it’s good you’re gettin’ back on the horse!”

 

“Yeah. Yay for me,” he said woodenly.

 

“I mean, yeah, sure, you got tossed through the ringer, but that just means that your next case is  guaranteed to go smoother!”

 

“I’m not sure there’s gonna be another case, Rita,” he said, voice muffled as he rubbed his face with his good hand. 

 

Rita quelled the surge of worry that started to well up and, intentionally misinterpreting his meaning, she replied, “I dunno boss. This is Hyperion City! There’s always gonna be good people who need your help! Just like this last guy. I don’t think I _ever_ seen a guy be so relieved. What’cha do for him, boss?”

  
“It’s a long story, Rita,” Juno sighed, slowly standing up. “I’ll tell you on the way home.” 

 

Then, as they were waiting for the elevator, Rita had a sudden realization.

 

“Wait, boss. How’d you even get to the office?”

 

————————————————————————

 

It turned out that the story was relatively straightforward and Juno was able to tell it in almost its entirety during their short drive back to her apartment (without a single word of complaint in regards to their destination from her boss, which worried her more than the fact that he’d apparently walked the three blocks to the office from her apartment on a sprained ankle). 

 

Gavin had initially sought out Juno’s services to help determine why his husband, Bran, had become withdrawn and started keeping irregular hours. Juno had initially assumed that Bran was cheating on Gavin despite Gavin’s vehement protests that Bran would never do such a thing (“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a spouse _would_ do such a thing,” Juno told Rita as a derisive aside. She very carefully didn’t think about Diamond.). However, Juno took the case because, “The guy seemed desperate and at his wit’s end and like the type who actually pays his bills.” Through following Bran, Juno discovered that he was actually selling drugs and—more saliently—getting those drugs from a pair of dirty cops (“Sorry, that was redundant,” Juno had sneered), likely from their own evidence lock-up. It had quickly become clear that Bran was doing so under duress. So Juno had cornered him and Bran had eventually come clean: that, in his past when he’d been living in Oldtown—and before he’d met Gavin—he’d served time in jail for selling drugs. He’d been clean and self-employed as a mechanic for the past ten years when he’d been approached by two cops who knew his background and that he’d be the perfect person to peddle their drugs for them, allowing them to reap the benefits while minimizing their risk; they had found in Bran the perfect fall-guy. 

 

“But how’d they force him to cooperate, boss?” Rita asked as she parked.

 

“They had stolen the LocDoc his daughter’s adoption records and certificate were on.”

 

“An’ that’s what you broke into HCPD to steal back?”

 

“To _take_ back, yeah. As long as that document drive was in their possession, they could make Bran do anything. If he didn’t cooperate, they’d report her to Immigration or Child Protection Services or whatever. Without those documents in his possession, they’d take her away and probably find reason to convict him and Gavin, too.” He rubbed his shoulder for a moment and then added, “Thankfully, they were too busy reveling in the chance to be sadistic scum-suckers that they didn’t think to actually search me after they’d cuffed me.” 

 

“That’s…that’s really horrible, Mista’ Steel.”

 

Juno leaned back and closed his eye. “That’s _status quo_ , Rita.”

 

Rita studied him for a moment. He looked weary in that way she’d seen in the past, a weariness that had nothing to do with physical pain or fatigue but rather the weariness that comes from obtaining a hard-won victory only to realize that in the grand scheme of things, the world was no better a place for all that effort. And after seeing her boss struggle with this perception for more than a decade, she still hadn’t found the words to convince him otherwise. So, instead, she found herself saying, “C’mon boss. Let’s get you back inside. I’ll fix us a late lunch.”

 

———————————————————————————

 

It was early evening and Rita was sitting on the couch, absorbed in the latest episode of _West Wings of Angels_ , when there was a knock at her door.

 

She opened her door to a large, broad-shouldered man in police uniform. 

 

“You Rita?” he asked gruffly in a voice she immediately recognized from their recent phone conversation as Captain Omar Khan’s.  

 

“Yup, that’s me! What can I do for ya?” Then, a thought hit her. “Wait, what’s wrong? There’s nothing wrong, is there? You ain’t here to take away Mista’ Steel, are ya? ‘Cause…’cause he ain’t here! He’s…on the run! On a lamb, even! Though, it ain’t the most efficient way to travel, but this is a judgement-free zone—a lady can travel however he likes—“

 

The man had cleared his throat several times during her panicked diatribe before finally interrupting, “Miss Rita, calm down. I’m not here to arrest Steel, though he’s darn lucky that’s the case.”

 

“Oh, then why _are_ you here? And…and how did you know he’s here?!?”

 

“I didn’t, but he wasn’t at any of the hospitals in town or at his place so yours seemed like the next best place to look.”

 

“Oh.” Rita felt sheepish at having divulged her boss’s location so easily. However, it was thanks to Captain Khan that Juno was with her and not still trapped in a station full of cops who hated his guts. Also, he’d politely knocked at her door; she didn’t think someone who meant her boss harm would have started off with social niceties. Despite this, she was still feeling rather protective. “Yeah, well, he’s sleepin’ at the moment, so you’ll have to come back later.”

 

“He’s sleeping?” Khan asked dubiously, his height making it easy to scrutinize the dimly lit apartment over Rita’s head. “Kind ‘a early for bedtime, isn’t it?”

 

Rita sniffed haughtily. “I dunno if you realize, Captain Khan, but Mista’ Steel’s had a real rough day, no thanks to your cops.”

 

“I know. That’s what I’m here to talk to him about, actually. You sure I can’t talk to him tonight? It’s really important that I get his statement on record ASAP. I’m not sayin’ anything official, but sometimes cops have been known to start to destroy evidence as soon as there’s any chance that I’m on to them. I got Loo keepin’ Evidence on lockdown, but there’s only so long I can have them stay at it.”

 

“Weell…” If Rita could have it her way, she would have insisted that Khan came back in the morning after Juno was better rested. However, she knew Juno would be angry if he learned that Rita had delayed their chance to bring the men who’d threatened a family to justice. Such a delay might give the men in question opportunity to go after Bran and his family. She wasn’t sure she could live with that on her conscience. “Fine,” she relented. “Come in. I’ll get Mista’ Steel.” She heard Captain Khan close the front door behind him and then follow her into the living room, taking a seat on her couch to wait. “And _don’t_ touch my snacks.”

 

——————————————————————————

 

It took several minutes to coax Juno awake. From past experience, Rita knew that she had to do so carefully when he was on pain meds as he had a tendency to startle awake in violent disorientation. Given that he’d lost the tolerance he’d once had to narcotics, it was no easy feat to wake him from a heavy, drugged sleep in a method that was gentle enough to prevent panicked flailing.

 

Unfortunately, she was less than successful in this endeavor, though it only took about half a minute for Juno to regain his bearings. 

 

“He’s here now?” he asked groggily after Rita had quickly explained the situation.

 

“Yeah. Says it’s real important that he get your statement tonight. That’s his problem though, boss. You don’t gotta do nothin’ you don’t wanna do, tonight. I’m more than happy to tell him to beat it.”

 

He rubbed at his eye, tiredly. “No…no, this needs to happen tonight.” However, he made no move to stand up.

 

Rita waited for a minute, but he stayed where he was, propped against the mountain of pillows that Rita had constructed to help him rest more comfortably with broken ribs. 

 

“Juno,” she said gently, his first name sounding foreign and admittedly a bit uncomfortable on her tongue, “I’m serious. I can tell him to come back tomorrow.”

 

She couldn’t make out his expression in the darkened room, but after a second, he shifted his weight and used his good arm to slowly push himself more upright. “Hand me my sling, would you?”

 

By the time Rita had turned on the light and located the sling, Juno was sitting on the edge of the bed under his own power, though he held himself stiffly and the muscle at the corner of his jaw was clenched. She helped him don the sling and, without a word, offered her arm to help him up, which he accepted. Slowly, they made their way back into the living room. 

 

“Sons of Jupiter, Steel, you look like you went ten rounds with a Europan freighter.”

 

“No, just one round with one of _your_ men,” he snarked through gritted teeth as Rita helped him sit gingerly in the armchair perpendicular to Captain Khan’s seat on her sofa. “And they used a pair of handcuffs and a flight of stairs, which I’m pretty sure is cheating.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about.” He pulled out his comms and a stylus. “I need names and your side of the story, Steel, and I need ‘em before my lieutenant goes off duty or you can kiss the case against these knuckleheads goodbye.”

 

———————————————————————————

 

It didn’t take long for Juno to relay the pertinent facts to Khan. Rita supposed that this was mostly because Juno didn’t seem to have the energy to pick a fight with Captain Khan. The captain, for his part, took notes in silence, only very rarely interrupting when something needed clarification. 

 

“I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do about all of this,” said Khan after Juno had finished. “The only evidence we have against them is you and your client’s word and some missing drugs from Evidence that could have been taken by any number of people. And, on top of it all, _you_ broke into the station. _That_ part was caught on tape.” 

 

“So was the cop pushin’ Mista’ Steel down a flight of stairs!” Rita cried. “And, anyway, I’m the only one with a copy of that footage.”

 

“Yeah, but if we use that evidence to prove police brutality, there’s a chance that Steel here will be sentenced to jail-time alongside Sergeant Dill. I hope you realize just how generous I’m being here, giving you the option of me _not_ getting a lawyer to subpoena that evidence.”

 

Rita couldn’t believe her ears. “So, what, we do nothin’?!?”

 

“Nothing _official,_ ” Captain Khan clarified. “ _Unofficially_ , there’s still a couple of things I can—and will—do to make sure Sergeants Dill and Umber don’t get off lightly. _But,_ that’s your choice. If you want, I can submit the one objective piece of evidence we have that Dill did _something_ criminal and risk you as well, or you let me take care of it from the inside.”

 

“That’s a real shitty offer,” Juno said, wearily. He paused, and then continued, “If it were just the one guy, sure, I’d be more than happy to go down with him. But you’re the head of an outhouse of corruption, Khan, and jailing just one piece of shit won’t do anything to lessen the stench emanating from it.”

 

Rita expected Khan to get riled up and defensive at this comment. Instead, he seemed to deflate slightly. “You’re absolutely right, Steel. And I don’t expect you to realize just how hard it’s been trying to keep the stench from getting even worse.” He stood and started to walk towards the door. “Just as I don’t expect you to trust that I _will_ keep something like this from happening again.”

 

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Khan.”

 

Rita heard Khan sigh before calling out, “Well, ‘night Rita. ‘Night Steel,” before leaving Rita’s apartment.

 

Juno sagged back into the cushions after the door shut behind Khan. 

 

“Y’know, boss…I think I trust that guy. At least, I trust him to do what he said.”

 

“Yeah,” he said absently, staring blankly at Rita’s carpet. 

 

“Want some help getting back to bed, boss?”

 

“No I…I don’t think I can sleep right now.”

 

“That’s okay. Oh! How about a movie night? We ain’t had one of those in _ages_!”

 

“Yeah, sure,” he replied, dully.

 

“Yes!” Rita cheered, pumping her fist. “Now, you stay right there, boss. I’ll get us everything we need for one of Rita’s trade-mark Movie Nights!”

 

She spent the next several minutes gathering up various objects of comfort—a blanket, a pillow, a box of Kleenex, a glass of water, the variety of snacks that Juno actually tolerated, another blanket—with the goal to keep piling stuff near him until she succeeded in exacerbating him out of whatever headspace he’d been in enough for him to snap at her.

 

Distraction complete, she sat down on the section of couch closest to Juno’s recliner and started the movie. It was one she’d seen plenty of times before, so she was able to dedicate some of her attention towards observing Juno: when it seemed like he was becoming preoccupied by whatever thoughts were spinning in his head, Rita would draw him out by making a comment about the movie (“Oh, boss, you’re gonna love this part, the manikins are gonna come to _life_ and some of ‘em even breathe _fire!”)_ or seeing if he needed anything else (“Rita, the contents of your entire apartment are at my elbow. I couldn’t possibly need anything at the moment.”). 

 

Then, the movie got to her favorite part and, in the couple of minutes she spent entirely absorbed in the events on screen, her boss had fallen asleep. 

 

He looked almost peaceful, feet propped up by the recliner footrest and drowning in blankets. Rita was loathe to wake him and figured that he’d be just as comfortable there as in bed given the state of his ribs and shoulder. She herself had fallen asleep in that recliner several times, so she could vouch for its comfort.

 

She turned down the volume and kept watching until the end. Then, turning off the monitor, she stretched out on the couch and tucked her own blanket more securely around her shoulders. She fell asleep listening to her boss’s slow, even breathing.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> —Police brutality  
> —Blackmail using a child’s adoption papers as collateral  
> —References to past narcotic-dependence
> 
> Answer to a question no one asked #1: So, most of my fics are inspired by a single scene that I want to write (how they get to be 8k, I have no idea). The mental imagery that inspired this fic? Juno falling down a flight of stairs. 
> 
> Answer to a question no one asked #2: This is actually the second Penumbra fic that I ever started, which I had abandoned some time ago. However, the next installment in the “Espansivo” series is…being a bit difficult, so I found myself working on this fic when I found myself getting frustrated with the “Espansivo" one. Silver linings, right?
> 
> Answer to a question no one asked #3: The myth that I referenced that you shouldn’t allow a person with a concussion to sleep is indeed false! Brain rest is key for brain recovery! Sleep deprivation only makes things worse. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I adore comments like whoa.


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